BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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EVOLUTION (Energy flow and) 1)

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A. LOTKA formulated an hypothesis according to which the essential logic of evolution corresponds to the maximal use of the available free energy.

He surmises that the planet as a whole is an energy dissipative system, under the guise of what he calls the "world engine". This latter would be a global system endowed with multiple correlations, being an integrated set of numerous coupled energy transformers (green plants, plankton, herbivores, carnivores) able to use maximally the global energy flow.

According to LOTKA, the basic tendency of evolution is to improve this transformation line by eliminating the less efficient species and favor the most efficient ones. He made (in 1924) this suggestive prediction, placing man as the most powerful energy transformer: "…the problem of economy in husbanding resources will not rise to its full importance until the available resources are more completely tapped than they are today. Every indication is that man will learn to utilize some of the sunlight that now goes to waste. The general effect will be to increase the rate of energy flux through the system of organic nature, with a parallel increase in the total mass of the great world transformer, of its rate of circulation, or both" (1956, p.357-8).

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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